[((___jade___))>]

Slowing his walk, Thayne decided that perhaps it would be better not to let go of her hand after all. Although he usually did not care about such things, there was a possibility that she would be offended by that. If he was going to be spending this much time with her, he probably wanted to stay on her good side. Even if she did not seem like the type to be angry or anything, he preferred not to have tension.

"Oh, I see..." He sighed, absently lowering his gaze to the ground. Apparently he had it better off than he had thought. A year was plenty of time, in his mind, to think about it and accept it.

Nodding slightly in answer to Atane's statement, Thayne smiled slightly. "Yes... I like to come out here to read sometimes when someone's using the library. There's plenty of hiding places too..." He could not even count the many times over his childhood that he had curled up under one of the bushes or trees in that garden with a book, remaining there undetected for hours on end. He had once hidden so well that he had fallen asleep and nobody found him until the next morning. The had almost caused the destruction of his favorite tree.